Tina “Luvs-Torun” Lam (HF16109 MM15672 DA3665) –
Friday April 28
2 mile shake out run at Dunes Peninsula Park, where I met fellow maniacs from OH, PA, CA, and WA! It was great to see the RD and #3 Maniac Tony. I finally met Brian, the MM/HF blogger and as a side gig he is a run coach too. Running with him and he gave me some tips, after listening to my breathing, while running. Views of Mt. Rainier were amazing. This is where we will race tomorrow and the finish area for Sunday race. We went to Anthem Coffee to hang out afterwards, until the bib pick opened. The weird thing is no prices listed at the coffee shop. Tax really gets me too. It is 10% tax here. Some places if you use credit card, then they add 3.5% fee on top of that. Maybe it is better to carry cash, but then some places do not take cash. Bib pick up and I think I really confused the volunteer. I needed the Tacoma 5k, Ghost half, and Tacoma City half bib. At first, they did not give me the 5k shirt and then I thought I was missing my shuttle bus pass wristband for Sunday race. Luckily, I noticed the lady had given another lady yellow shirts. She only gave me a black shirt, which was for the half marathon. I need all of my race swag!
Saturday. April 29
Tacoma City 5k and Ghost of Tacoma Half Marathon this morning! 2 of 3 races done! One more half marathon tomorrow! This was my #67 half marathon. The views along the waterway were wonderful, light wind, very sunny. 55F at the 5k start, but 72F by the time we finished the half marathon. I knew that I had to keep my pace steady and not run all out. Since I have another race tomorrow. I was fortunate to have met Jackie before the 5k and ended up running the entire half marathon with her. We were running with another guy, Zach and this was his 1st half marathon. I wouldn’t choose this one for a first time race because mostly self supported. Only 2 aid stations, but you pass one twice. Good thing, they had a few people at the streets we had to cross or I would of got lost. Zac claimed he was going for last place, but he ended up ditching us after the halfway point and we never caught up to him. We saw him leaving when we were 0.5 mile away. Hardly anyone was there when we finished, but the full marathon was going on and at least they still had finish line snacks! Water, peanuts, chips, and banana. Gatorade, water, honey stinger gel at halfway point. They say it is actually abnormally warm right now. The full marathon does 2 loops of the half course. So when we saw Cade, the front runner of the full coming back out and we were at mile 10 or so. My goal was to try to finish the half before he finished the full. Well, we did stop for the restroom and all of the aid stations. Unfortunately, Cade came blazing past me by the waterfront and I had 0.4 miles to go! Dang it, but he is in that 50 states in under 4 hours full marathon club! Crazy fast! Boston Qualified runner too. He won the full marathon today! Of course, I will post more photos later. But I did finish. Lunch at Chick Fil A, because they aren’t open tomorrow. Bummer, my hotel pool is closed for another 3-4 weeks! I had already changed to go dip my feet in the pool too. 72F is perfect for the pool!
Saturday April 29, 2023 Tacoma 5k started at 8am and the Ghost of Tacoma Half or Full started at 9am. I woke up early and got to the park by 6am because I wanted to make sure that I could park in the parking lot by the race start/finish. I left my Ghost half bib and hydration pack in the car, so I could grab it after 1st race was done. Sunny day, ended up being 72F. There were 2 turnaround points on the 5k course. By 0.85 mile into the run, the lead male was coming back. I took photos of all the runners returning that I saw wearing Maniac gear. When I finished, I wanted to take a photo by the sign. Had to wait because 2 others ahead were making reels, doing IG and other things. As I am waiting, another runner comes over and asks if I am the one with pre-race group photo. Yes, but I will put the photos in the group fb later. She’s not on fb, so she wants me to text her photo right now. I told her to walk with me. I am in a hurry to get my other bib and gear for next race in less than 15 minutes. I text her the photo, which she says she doesn’t get it. I try to get her to text me a msg, but she doesn’t have her readers in her sunglasses. I end up having 3 minutes to spare after getting out of the porta potty to go to the start. Very tight turnaround to do next race. I didn’t even look at the snacks or check my time. Part 1
Part 2 Ghost of Tacoma half and full. It was difficult to know who was doing which race, until we saw some runners coming back out for lap 2 in the full. Zach passed us going up the hill to the turnaround. By mile 7, I was think hmmm…my legs feel like I have run 10 miles, well I had if you counted the 5k race. We saw Cade going to the turnaround. It was getting hot, 72F and we stopped at the park restroom near the other aid ststion. I put water on my arms and face to cool off. Running along the waterway, it was 12.7 miles on my watch when Cade passed me for the finally time. Just a fun side game to keep me running. I didn’t beat him on Saturday. When we finished hardly anyone was around. They didn’t even call out our names when we finished. We collected our medals and didn’t check our times. Cade was the overall winner of the full marathon. He would run the full the next day too. I went to Chick Fila for lunch. Later in the evening, I found out I placed 2nd in my age group and Jackie placed 3rd in her age group. They gave top 5 for age groups. The route we ran on was mostly the 2nd half of the Full marathon on Sunday. Dinner with the Marathon Maniacs. Busy Saturday.
Updated: I got my 2nd place Age group Ribbon today!
Awe, bummer! I didn’t even think to check results this morning at the Ghost of Tacoma half and could of got 2nd place age group ribbon! Hardly anyone was still around! They don’t mail age ribbons.
Flat Tina for Day 2- Tacoma City Half Marathon. I can’t decide to use my Hokas or Brooks tomorrow.
#marathonmaniacsreunion #tacomacityhalfmarathon #marathonmaniacs #halffanatics #doubleagent #alaskarunnergirl
Thanks to MM blogger Brian for these Ghost of Tacoma Half Marathon shots and Olivia took these at the carbo loading dinner. I ended up sitting at the separate “kids” table. Just kidding. The other table was very crowded.
Sunday April 30, 2023 was the Tacoma City Half Marathon and Marathon. I was up early because we needed to take a shuttle bus to the start line. I left my hotel at 4:50am and parked at the boat lauch parking lot, which was 0.6 mile walk to the shuttle. Tons of parking and then Brian pulled up. We didn’t even coordinate what time we were going to the shuttle. I showed him the road/path to walk over. The 1st shuttle was at 5am, so we probably got on the 2nd bus and left at 5:20am. The start line was at the Tacoma Narrows Airport. We were able to hang out in the Gig Harbor Vintage Aero Museum before the start of the race. The porta potties were in a corner and there was no line when I got there. 6:30am there was an early start for the Marathon because the course time limit was 6 hours. So with the early start it would give them 7 hours to complete the full marathon. Close to 1000 ft elevation gain. I watched the early start runners and as soon as I walked back to the hangar I saw the porta potty line was angled all the way into the building. I didn’t have to go, but figured I would by the time the line reach the stalls. I am glad that I did stand in line. At this point, more and more shuttles were arriving with runners. I had no idea there were 1201 runners total doing the full/half. Much larger race than the Ghost race. The line started to wind like a snake. People couldn’t find the end of the line. I think it would of been better to have multiple lines for the 20 porta potties, but no one would listen to me. It wasn’t very efficient. I only had to wait 10 minutes in line. Pre-race photos and meet up with other runners! Jackie found me amongst the 1201 runners! So enough we were lining up for the 7:30am start.
So I told Cade at the start that I would look for him on the route. He had a target on his back for wearing that Chasing the Unicorn tank! Little did he know, that I would see him later. Somehow, we manage to line up by the 4:30 marathon pacer Sally. The very first section of 2 lanes of road was fairly packed, then it spread out before we ran across the Narrows Bridge! It was really cool. It kind of reminded me of running across the Golden Gate bridge. It was windy on the bridge. The views were awesome. Brian swept by us on the bridge mile 2 and Marinda decided to run with us. I was so excited to see cherry blossoms in bloom on the course! The Blue Star Memorial with the Cherry Blossoms was so lovely. We took a turn to add some extra miles. Apparently, the Tacoma City Half Marathon would be my PR race for photos! I took way too many! Part 1
Tacoma City Half Marathon was scenic. I loved running thru the neighborhoods and seeing all of the flowers. Only a small section of an out and back to see the runners ahead of us near mile 4. Not too many were out cheering us on, but one family was driving/cheering on their mom. It was cute. Uphill at mile 6, but then downhill. Part 2
Tacoma City Half Marathon mile 7 and I was still going along, sort of waiting for my friends to catch back up. They finally did after mile 9. Running in Point Defiance Park, 5 mile road was nice. Someone saw a raccoon, but I didn’t see it. We ran by the zoo and ran by a Japanese pagoda. I turned on the boardwalk and saw Cade’s tank top. He was 0.3 miles ahead of me. I tried to sprint, but the best pace I could get was 10:43. It seemed like I finished behind him. Only later, I would find out that I beat him by 21 seconds! We made it to the finish line and collected all of the bling!
Post race, I wanted to make sure I got all of my medals and all the ribbons! We were lucky to see RD Tony giving out the 20th Anniversary coin for Marathon Maniacs and got one! They were on the marathon race route at mile 19. There was no way I was going to run the marathon, but I did complete over the marathon distance on two days-5k, half, half. I hung around for a little while after the race and walked back to my car. I saw 2 deers and someone told me to go around the corner and see a whale. I had to climb up the stairs by the slides to the walkway to view the whale. If I was still at the finish line, then I could of seen the whale closer! It was cool to see it breach. I slide down a few of the slides. When I went to my car, I saw Brian’s car was missing. I thought he didn’t finish sweeping the marathon? I didn’t see him when I finished the half? But then next thing Cade pulls up driving Brian’s car. He had borrowed it to go to his hotel to shower. He didn’t park it in the same spot. I needed to go back to my hotel to shower and go to the after party at the North End on Pearl. It was fun to meet more Marathon Maniacs and celebrate Cade, being inducted in the Marathon Maniacs Hall of Fame for running 333 Lifetime Marathons! I had no idea that I had picked such an accomplished runner to try to run against! I got a lot of tips about other races to go too. Some of those runners have run hundreds and hundreds of marathons.
Official Tacoma City Half Marathon Finisher photos and the shot of the whale by the finish! What epic shots! I saw the whale much further away. Pre-race photos.
